ISLAMABAD: Director General (DG) of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor told a foreign news outlet on Wednesday that Pakistan had gone out of its way to defuse tensions in the region by returning a captured Indian pilot to his country, adding that it was now up to India if it acknowledged that peace gesture or not.
In an exclusive interview with CNN, an American news channel, he admitted that the two South Asian nuclear rivals found themselves on the brink of war when Indian fighter jets launched an airstrike near Balakot last week and Pakistan decided to respond to the “aggression” militarily.
Asked if things could still get worse between the two countries, he said: “Now the ball is in the Indian court. If they decide to escalate more, the situation will go bad.”
Discussing the situation along the Line of Control (LoC), he said that India and Pakistan had increased the number of their troops along the de facto border separating the two parts of Kashmir in view of the current situation.
Ghafoor once again challenged India’s narrative that its airstrikes had destroyed a terrorist training camp near Balakot, saying: “Their claims are false and I believe lately there has been an announcement on their side as well that they cannot claim any casualty [as a result of the attack].”
He attributed the February 14 suicide bombing in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed at least 40 paramilitary troops to “Indian occupation” of the region,” adding: “If you suppress the local population to the extent that they are being killed and raped, there [will be] a natural reaction.”
Ghafoor asserted that Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) had not claimed responsibility of the attack “from within Pakistan,” saying that the group did not exist in his country since it had been “proscribed by the United Nations” and Islamabad.
Responding a question about the recent crackdown against various militant factions, he contended that Pakistan was not doing it under international pressure.
It was not in the interest of his country, he noted, to allow non-state actors to use its territory against another state. “Instead of blaming Pakistan,” Ghafoor continued, “the world should assist and facilitate Pakistan in getting rid of such organizations.”
